Summit focuses on career paths

Talks yesterday at the third annual Massachusetts Jobs and Workforce Summit centered on new strategies to coordinate workforce and education in response to business needs.

Greg Bialecki, secretary of the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, said he and his colleagues are working very closely to put an education and workforce development system in place that meets both the needs of the students and regional employees.

“We want to be the best in our country and we’re on our way,” Mr. Bialecki said, addressing a packed room made up of business, labor, education, training, community, faith-based and workforce professionals at the Publick House.

Mr. Bialecki said the key industries to tap into are health care, life sciences, information technology and manufacturing. He said the common thread is building career pathways that will lead to a set of skills and competencies that are marketable and fit employees’ needs.

“Our goal is to have a statewide committee to articulate the vision,” Mr. Bialecki said, “but do the work through a series of regional groups and have a regional plan in process that will provide the particular tools and the particular framework for regional stakeholders to collaborate.”

Nancy Snyder, president of Commonwealth Corporation, who was pinch-hitting for Secretary Joanne Goldstein, of the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, said no age group has been more beaten up by the recession than 16- to 24-year-olds. For the state to be effective in ensuring that workers, communities and businesses thrive, they all need to share the same vision, she said.

“Massachusetts is one of the most highly skilled economies in the world. And increasingly, post-secondary education is really a requirement to be able to find a family-sustaining job,” Ms. Snyder said. “And that means our workforce strategy needs to be really closely aligned with our education strategy, and, in particular, with our community colleges.”

State Education Secretary Paul Reville said the state has to be “career-ready” for the future. To become career ready, he said, you have to bring employers to the table to help shape curriculum in the elementary, secondary and higher-education system.

“Education is not just for preparing young people for employment. We want to prepare them to be citizens and leaders. We want to prepare them to be heads of families with all of the character traits and values that we associate with that. We want them to be lifelong learners and be able to solve problems that we can’t even conceive of today,” Mr. Reville said. “But at the heart of all that, there needs to be employment. And our curriculum needs to be informed by what the needs are, not 10 years ago or 20 years ago, but tomorrow, and five years from now and 10 years from now.”